


Over the Armrest

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Meetings, Fluff, Gay Castiel, Hamburgers, Horror Buff Dean, M/M, Movie Theatres, Openly Bisexual Dean, Scared Castiel, Scary Movies, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 15:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7320439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas isn’t sure how loud he screams, but judging by the pointed looks from people in the front row, he’s guessing pretty loud. </p><p>And it isn’t until he realizes he’s not only facing Dean, but clutching onto him over the armrest like a beggar in the streets: Dean’s harmonizing with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over the Armrest

 

If anyone asks, Castiel is afraid of the people in _front_ of the screen rather than inside it.

He knows it's stupid. If he should fear anything in the back of a movie theatre, it should be the very real possibility of being groped by Marty McOpenFly. But no, Castiel _has_ to be afraid of the thing that’s nothing but a tennis ball suspending from dental floss before it goes through the graphics department. And on top of it, he has to take the literal ball on a string his brother Gabriel offers him that’s a whopping $100 if he can stay through the whole movie. A hundred dollars. That could buy him a photo op with the _actual_ Marty McFly.

Nonetheless, he's doing it. He's got his extra-large popcorn bag and he's carrying them both to the very back of the theatre—tackling both fears head-on. No demon with a raging boner's gonna pry him from his seat.

Except, the boy a couple seats down from him can only be described as such for being so devilishly good looking. Seriously, did he sell his soul to replace James Fucking Dean? With golden brown hair, bronze, battle-worn skin (by battle, he meant the one with the sun where the guy's hotness squeezed the mighty lamp in the sky like an orange, causing it to drip burning acid like stars onto his wiry arms), and a body made out of quality lead—lean and potentially hazardous.

After a few minutes of awkward phone handling, the guy peers up at Cas through long lashes and an even longer set of magnifying glasses perched on his nose.

"Hey," he says coolly, smile crooked enough to tilt the earth out of alignment. His eyes, speaking of Earths...

Cas blinks a few times. He'll convince himself later it's from the dust falling off the projector. "H-hi."

"What's your poison?"

"My what?"

There's a laugh. Of course there's a laugh. It's rich and deep, like dark chocolate smuggled from home—secret, reserved for special moments. Castiel doesn't consider himself in that category. "Your poison. Are you _really_ a popcorn guy or are you secretly—" Earth Eyes pulls out three crinkling plastic packages from his jean pocket, "a White Castle junkie?"

Castiel can't help the laugh bubbling to the surface. Maybe it's nerves, between Earth Eyes and the pending flick, but his mind's too busy reeling like a fresh film pack to care. "How did you—?"

"I have my ways," Earth Eyes replies, eyebrows wiggling. "Want one?"

"Sure, I guess," Castiel laughs, reaching across what now feels like a vast space between them. "Thanks," he responds, holding up the oddly warm package before Earth Eyes lifts the armrest in the middle of the seats between them to slide to Castiel almost effortlessly.

"Dean," he offers.

Castiel takes his hand with a blush the size of Canada stretching across the plain of his face. "Castiel."

"Wow."

"I know," Castiel replies, shrugging. "My parents have a thing for God. Quite frankly, I don’t know why they chose to name me after the Angel of Thursday when I was born on a Tuesday, but—"

Luckily, Castiel's rambling is cut short by Dean's laugh, "No, Cas, it's not like that. It's just a really cool name.”

"Oh..."

"Yeah," Dean says, blushing too. "But you do have a point. Friday’s obviously better.”

"That's funny, considering it’s Friday and what literal horrors we're about to inflict upon ourselves.”

"Are you kidding?!" Dean scoffs, "I friggin' _love_ horror films!"

"Really?"

"Hell yeah!" Dean belts. (Luckily, the trailers have only just begun and the place is just now starting to crowd like a bee hive with too many workers.) "I couldn't get my little brother Sammy to go with me, he's deathly afraid of clowns."

Cas pales, and not just from the cold air blasting through them. "There are clowns in this film?"

Dean notes Cas’s sudden state of distress and places a warm hand over his wrist. "Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm just... nervous, I guess. It's lame, I know."

Dean shakes his head. "I don't think so. It's just, no offense, but why are you here if you don't like horror?"

"I'm getting a good payout if I don't squeal like a pig all the way home."

"Ah, gotcha,” Dean replies before slapping him lightly on the shoulder. “Well hey, buck up! I hear there's lots of nipple exposure in this one."

"If only I swung that way," Cas retorts, tearing into his White Castle like he just got off Lent. Dean laughs, turning away from him with a shrewd wink.

"I meant on both parties, Cas."

Cas can’t say anything beyond a couple dumbly put _oh’s_ before the production credits start to roll because, yeapp, no need to worry about catching cold in the movies, he’s definitely a furnace now.

Dean snaps back in his seat like an excitable twelve-year-old and starts fumbling with his own White Castle package. The first five minutes are cringeworthy, filled with enough jump scares to make anyone look like those Magic Jumping Beans Cas had when he was a kid, but Dean’s exhilaration—the slow, but sure widening of his dark emerald eyes and the cheeky smile suppressed by the mastication of his lower lip—is enough to distract Cas through the whole movie.

Of course, if he stares the whole time, Dean will either move away or Cas will get kicked out for public indecency based on his gaze _alone,_ so he turns back to the film.

It isn’t until halfway through when the clowns come out. They’re not _too_ scary-looking—at least not like the thing that rings its neck with an umbrella handle and yanks it into the dark. Cas isn’t sure how loud he screams, but judging by the pointed looks from people in the front row, he’s guessing pretty loud.

And it isn’t until he realizes he’s not only facing Dean, but _clutching_ onto him over the armrest like a beggar in the streets: Dean’s harmonizing with him.

After a moment of regaining their breaths, Dean’s eyes flick to Cas’s lips, nose, and eyes before coming to rest on his dark bedhead and starts picking something out. Cas glances down to find his popcorn box not just spilled over, but face down on the syphilis-stained floors surrounded by a sea of yellow.

Cas is the first one to break the tension with a barely stifled laugh. Dean’s quick to follow, muffling his own against Cas’s shoulder.

“Well, that was, uh, something,” Dean says once they’re inside the lobby, scratching his neck. He’s actually a lot taller than Cas thought, towering a good few inches over him.

Cas laughs, “Dean, we could’ve gotten kicked out.”

“We almost did! Remember when I said we should try cleaning up? That was only because security came tearing in scanning the upper level.”

Cas shoves him away. “Shut up!”

“Little too late for that, I think,” Dean chuckles.

“What happened, by the way?” Cas asks, eyeing him with a faint smile. “Mr. _I Love Horror_.” Dean rolls his eyes around Cas, but has a hard time skirting around the obvious blush that crosses his face. “What?”

“I may have been the one who turned my little brother off clowns,” he says, shrugging inward.

Cas tilts his head down with a mock-pout. “Aww, Dean—”

“Shut up,” he retorts lamely, shaking his head, and before Cas can overthink it, he shifts all his weight to his toes and plants a quick kiss on Dean’s cheek.

“I, uhm, thank you, by the way,” Cas rejoins shyly, shoving his hands into his pockets, “for braving through that with me.”

The blush on Dean’s neck spreads his face like poison ivy. He coughs, trying dispel some of the irritated pores, but it only helps sprinkle some redness inside the spiraling slide of his ears and fogs up his glasses even more, “Anytime.”

With Dean by his side months after, sans armrest, Cas thinks horror might be his new favorite genre.

**Author's Note:**

> The Conjuring 2, guys, unbelievable stuff. Go watch it. There are no clowns, but it'll scare you, and give you Twist and Shout feels.


End file.
